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The Federal Government has clawed back more than $41 million worth of false claims by private employment agencies in just the past three years.
The agencies are contracted by the Government under a privatised welfare-to-work program called Job Services Australia, a sprawling $1.3 billion-a-year scheme designed to get the unemployed into work.
A Four Corners investigation has found rorting of the scheme is rampant. Forgery, manipulation of records and the lodgement of inflated claims for fees are widespread.
One former agency employee said he had seen "thousands" of jobseeker records doctored by his agency to support suspect claims against the taxpayer.
The managing director of a private employment agency told Four Corners: "There are incentives to be involved in sharp practices from a financial and performance perspective.
"We had to do the same thing [because] everyone was doing it," the source said.
"The Government does not want to expose the whole industry."
Three years ago a top-level inquiry into just one type of fee found spectacular rates of failure, forcing cancellation of that particular fee and prompting industry-wide ructions.
Ominously, the inquiry noted that just 40 per cent of the claims it examined could be confirmed by documentary evidence, or by the testimony of jobseekers and their employers.
The Abbott administration has made some changes to the scheme that take effect mid-way through this year.
But critics say these changes will do little, if anything, to stop widespread gaming of the contract.
Rorting Welfare seems to be Australia's main industry nowadays.
